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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23954716">last call at the garden of eden</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zaxal/pseuds/Zaxal'>Zaxal</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman &amp; Terry Pratchett</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Banter, Fluff, Humor, Other</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 15:07:07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,473</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23954716</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zaxal/pseuds/Zaxal</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>God's going to get rid of the Tree Of Knowledge and the entirety of Eden <em>anyway</em>. Why shouldn't Crawly and Aziraphale eat the fruit?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Good Omens Celebration</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>last call at the garden of eden</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For the Good Omens Celebration 2020 Day 1 Prompt: In The Beginning</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Eden was empty.</p><p>It was eerily silent and still as if he’d mistakenly arrived in the middle of Creation and been told to sit still while God got on with the rest of it. He imagined, then, that it must have been just this quiet and desolate. The only sounds would’ve been the rustle of the leaves, the distant babble of a crystal-clear brook, and the howling winds in the untouched wasteland beyond the walls.</p><p>Yet, days ago, Eden had been bursting with life. There had been birdsong in the canopy as bugs chirped along the ground. The early evening had brought about a chorus of frogs, and in between the subtler, softer noises, there had been a symphony of assorted other animals going about their business, trumpeting and lowing and screeching where appropriate.</p><p>Days ago, Adam and Eve had been banished from the Garden, and the day after, not long after Aziraphale had finished repairing the hole in the wall, the entire structure had turned to sand, cascading to the ground as every animal from the smallest flea to the largest elephant was sent out into the world.</p><p>Eden was empty.</p><p>Or, well, it <em>should</em> have been.</p><p>Aziraphale heard the creak of branches, a quick bout of intense rustling, then a distinct choking noise that made him pick up his pace as he wove through the trees, the undergrowth scratching at his bare feet.</p><p>He came upon the clearing where the Tree Of Knowledge stood and stared.</p><p>Branch upon branch was weighed with lengths of dark, gleaming coils. The entire tree drooped towards the ground, shifting as the serpent wound his way through the leaves. Aziraphale watched in muted horror as that broad head with its triangular snout lifted towards a temptation of ruby red fruit. His slim tongue slithered out, tasting the air around the apple before he opened his maw, fangs flashing as he tore it from the branch. Slowly, Crawly tipped his head up, and his throat began to work, pulling the fruit down into his gullet.</p><p>Only. Right as the widest part of the fruit slid down the back of his throat, Crawly <em>gagged</em>. A wet noise clutched around the apple just as his tongue flicked out again. He reared back, waggling the front part of his body until something somewhere gave way, and the apple slid down into his body.</p><p>Crawly, with the confidence of someone who didn’t know they’d been seen doing something embarrassing, began nosing towards the next fruit, hissing something lurid and velvet under his breath.</p><p>Aziraphale’s nose wrinkled. He had questions, most of which involved the Tree Of Knowledge Of Good And Evil and wondering if a demon could possibly gain anything by gorging itself on the fruit it bore. Really, they were the foremost on his mind, curling on his tongue even though angels weren’t <em>meant</em> to question, but right as Crawly began to inspect the next apple, Aziraphale said, “Do snakes have a gag reflex?”</p><p>Crawly made a noise that someone less generous might have described as a shriek.</p><p>He moved lightning fast, coils disappearing up to the higher branches. The limbs creaked under the weight of him and shivered almost nervously.</p><p>“Crawly?” he asked, taking a step forward into the clearing.</p><p>A large head poked itself out of the tree’s crown, hellfire eyes gleaming as he stared down the angel.</p><p>When he spoke, it was deliberate and slow, “Aziraphale, right?” Aziraphale nodded. “And how long’ve you been lurking about?”</p><p>“I don’t <em>lurk</em>,” he began. Crawly’s eyes narrowed just a smidge, his tongue flicking out as he manifested an air of cold, unimpressed indifference. “I was assigned here. I’m <em>supposed</em> to be here.”</p><p>“You’re s’posed to be at the Gate!”</p><p>“There can’t be a Gate if there’s not a <em>wall</em>.”</p><p>Crawly opened his mouth to argue then closed it again. “S’not a wall?”</p><p>“Heavens, no. It came down days ago.” Pointedly, “Have you not noticed that all the animals are gone?”</p><p>Crawly’s eyes narrowed another centimeter more. “Course I have,” he said in a tone of voice that wasn’t particularly convincing even to an angel. A soft hiss was followed by an accusation, “But if they’re all gone, why are <em>you</em> here, eh?”</p><p>Aziraphale had, until now, only told one lie in his entire life. In the endless, ageless expanse of his creation, which had been some time before time itself and even farther removed from Creation as a proper noun, he’d only had one truth he’d kept hidden. But he <em>had</em> lied to an omniscient, omnipresent being — what he lacked in experience, he thought, might be made up in the sheer size and scope of his first and only falsehood.</p><p>Thus, entirely unconvincingly, a beat after it might have seemed a timely response, he said, “I’m to clean all of this up. We can— Heaven can hardly leave the Knowledge Of Good And Evil lying about. Imagine if a— a hippo were to eat one of these? Or a proper snake?”</p><p>“Madness,” Crawly supposed, nodding along. “Utter chaos.”</p><p>“Precisely. Your lot might go for that—”</p><p>“Oh, we might,” Crawly agreed easily.</p><p>“But it’s in Heaven’s best interest if the rest of the fruit was destroyed.”</p><p>“Not the tree?”</p><p>Aziraphale blinked. “Pardon?”</p><p>“Weeell,” Crawly dragged the word out as his head fell towards the lower branches, towards the apple that he’d been examining earlier. “So long as the tree’s around, it can keep producing fruit, can’t it?”</p><p>Aziraphale had not gotten the memo on the reproduction cycle of flowering trees. “Can it?”</p><p>“And imagine, angel. One of these falls off,” he tapped the tip of his tail on the apple which swung from its stem, a hypnotic pendulum, “and lands… a few feet away. Right where you’re at, maybe. Some sun, some rain, an’ now you’ve got <em>two</em> trees.”</p><p>“Oh. Oh, dear.”</p><p>“S’the problem with exponentials. More trees means more fruit means more trees and so on. Now we’re talking— talking <em>fish</em> knowing about Good And Evil. Can you imagine?”</p><p>Aziraphale could despite the fact that he very much didn’t want to.</p><p>He was starting to regret coming into the Garden one last time before he went to report that it was properly empty and ready to be unmade.</p><p>But.</p><p>
  <em>But.</em>
</p><p>When would he have this chance again? If angels could learn Good And Evil as the humans had, he might know if he’d done the right or wrong thing when he’d given away the sword. Lying was wrong, surely, but it was rather too late to admit what he’d done. He might find it easier to bear, if he knew it had been done for the right reasons, if it was the Right thing to do.</p><p>“Whassat look for?”</p><p>Aziraphale blinked, having not realized that he’d had any particular look at all. “What?” he asked, voice pitching higher without his permission.</p><p>“You look…” Crawly twisted his head almost completely upside down before he unwound again. “Y’look like Adam the first time he tried to climb the wall.”</p><p>“He didn’t—! The <em>first time—?!</em>”</p><p>“Yeah. Took to climbing trees when he couldn’t. Maybe he thought he could jump over, eh?”</p><p>“Why would Adam be trying to get to the top of the <em>wall</em>?”</p><p>“Same reason an angel wants to eat the forbidden fruit?”</p><p>Aziraphale opened his mouth to argue when Crawly’s words caught up with him. They hit him like ice to his lungs, sending a shiver through his body that seemed to race upwards, tightening behind his eyes. Something hot pricked at them, and, had Aziraphale at any point manifested tear ducts, he might have cried.</p><p>The threat of it was enough to make Crawly relent. “Aziraphale—” he started.</p><p>“Don’t,” he said, voice watery and uneven. “I don’t—! I don’t know what you’re talking about.”</p><p>For a long moment, Crawly said nothing, watching Aziraphale with his blank, expressionless face.</p><p>Then, finally, he said, “Can hardly judge, can I? Heard they were thinking of wiping Eden off the map, and I came up here straight away.”</p><p>“I—” He swallowed around the tightness in his throat. “I suppose you can’t.” Then, with a bit more confidence, “You’re a <em>demon</em>. What could you judge anyone for?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Crawly agreed quickly. “S’what I said.”</p><p>“And, anyway. I came to make certain that all the fruit was destroyed. Obviously.” That lie came easier. It had to be someone’s job; why not his?</p><p>“Obviously.” Crawly flicked the tip of his tail, severing the apple from its stem and sending it sailing through the air towards Aziraphale who caught it handily. “Just doing your job.”</p><p>“Precisely.” He turned the apple over in his hands, contemplating the shape, the color, the answers it might hold for him.</p><p>Then, with a gleam in his eyes, Crawly hissed, “May asss well ssstart with that one.”</p><p>Aziraphale, for better or worse, did.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>come talk to me on <a href="https://zaxal.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a>!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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